Howard Rambsy’s upcoming (Spring 2015) Af-Am Lit course

“Racism is like a Cadillac: they make a new model every year.” --Malcolm X

“Jesus was black, Ronald Reagan was the devil, and the government is lying about 9/11.” --Huey Freedman

For the official record, we’ll call this “a literature course.” On the lower frequencies, though, we know the real deal: this is an extension of study groups run by those conscious folks that started gaining steam during the late 1950s and early 1960s. We’ll study poetry, essays, rap music, and illustrated narratives (that’s a fancy way of saying “comic strips”). We’ll check out the sights and sounds of Amiri Baraka, Maya Angelou, Sonia Sanchez, and others. And if you insist, we’ll consider L-Boogie, Queen Bey, your dude Hov, and obviously Jay Electronica. We’ll also do annotation work on Rap Genius and Lit. Genius. Our main touchstones for the course, though, will be Malcolm X and Huey Freeman, you know, from The Boondocks.